This startup just raised $32 million to build solar farms using robots—and much less land

Solar farms have a land problem. When a new project was planned in a St. Louis suburb, the county zoning board rejected the design, arguing that it took up too much space and sat too close to a neighboring subdivision. The developer then turned to a startup called Planted to rethink the plan using a digital twin and robots. The result: The project used 40% less land to produce the same amount of power, allowing it to move forward.At a time when energy demand is surging, but solar projects often face roadblocks and long delays, Planted has a new way to speed up deployment. The company announced today that it has raised $31.8 million to scale up, with Piva Capital and RA Capital Management Planetary Health leading the round and participation from Google, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Gigascale Capital, and Khosla Ventures.“I started out months ago trying to answer a very simple question, which is, if solar panels are so cheap, why is utility-grade solar so expensive to install?” says Mike Schroepfer, founding partner of Gigascale Capital and former CTO at Meta. One problem, he says, is that we’re still building solar farms the way we did when panels were much more expensive. Now tha…